The Writers' Circle

I was riding the black omnibus, when I first saw her, strangley enough it was her long slender neck, I noticed first, how pale it was, fragile. I remember thinking, a neck like that, if touched, may fall apart like ash or break like an egg shell. This was only my first thought. 

It was after the second visit to her apartment I noticed those extraordinary black eyes, the first time I was careful, I remained hidden in the shadows, but the second time I was careless; an intrigue had caught my attention. Why did she wear that dress? It was startlingly beautiful, a deep red, like fruit, and so very solemn, death like. 

She lived in a below street level apartment, the first I've seen with windows, I couldn't decide whether they were bay or clearstory, they oddly resembled a shopfront, as the people passed by I stood silently in the rain admiring that dress, her movement, and the space between us that lingered like a moratorium pulling me ever closer over that black iron fence. I watched the rain stream down the stairwell and into gutter, gurgling and choking like the bubbling emotion I felt inside, I could smell the asphalt wet cloth of rain so vividly and paused in wonder at all the passing people, routinely collecting their mail, talking, completely oblivious to the ecstasy and suffocating wonderment that had filled my soul. I was finally alive! I choked on my tears and smiled, leaning closer still, and that's when she saw me for the first time, that's when I first saw those eyes, how they pearced me like Longinus! We both stood silently, infinitely, an electric vibe had rooted me to the ground, I had the impulse to run, but such extraordinary beauty had shattered my mind into a thousand ampoules of light. Everything I thought I knew about life.... was a lie. 

Still standing with my mouth agape, in fear and bliss, I began to feel guilty, not the natural guilt of a voyeur, I have felt so many times before, but a deep guilt for being human, and only human, surely my senses were now at a limit, how many other levels of beauty could exists within her, that I am unable to detect? I sank to my knees, but she remained motionless looking upward towards me, outwards into greyscale sky and rain. "Help me..." I mouthed the words but never spoke, and still she remained motionless, I was being drawn into her eyes, into her preternatural beauty and before I was pushed over by an asbsent minded pedestrian, she began to smile, a slow decaying smile, that started with a shadow at the corners of her lips and moved ever so slowly into the faintist wisp of emotion. 

My macintosh now wet from the rain and the rising pools on the street, I lay silently on my back breathing heavily and looking upwards into an elysium of grey, letting the rain hit my face, and the passing people step over me, I had found innocence in passing moments and lived, the spell was broken, I picked myself up and ran until I found shelter in La Trusca a nearby cafe on the edge of town, it was there I met McGregor.